Player Profile: Norichika Aoki

by Patrick Newman (Jan 30, 2009)

From 1994-2000, Ichiro was the undisputed best hitter in Japan. After he left for Seattle, Hideki Matsui took over as Japan's consensus batting king. After Matsui's reign, you'd have to go with Nobuhiko Matsunaka, until 2005 when Norichika Aokiemerged. It's hard to argue who was better in '05, but in 2006 Aoki took over the title and has held it ever since.

I mainly focus on pitching with this site, just because I think
pitching is the more interesting part of the game (baseball is the only
game where the defense controls the ball). So this will be my first of
comparatively few articles devoted to hitting, and why not start at the
top?

Looking BackNot too long ago, I was thumbing through Shukan Baseball's 2003
draft guide, and I happened across Aoki's profile toward the back of
the section for college players. Shukan Baseball graded him an 'A'
overall, noting that he had hit .400 in two consecutive seasons, but
compared him to Tatsuya Ozeki, a servicable contact-hitting outfielder with zero power. Aoki's Waseda University teammate Takashi Toritani really
viewed as the prize of the draft, and got a cover spot on that issue.
Back then, the top college and industrial league players could choose
which team to sign with, and Toritani chose to sign with Hanshin, while
Aoki was selected in the fourth round of the draft by Yakult. By the
end of 2005, it was obvious which team had the better draft. I didn't
see Aoki in college so I can't explain why he was so underrated, but it
does speak to the difficulty of drafing top amateurs. Perhaps teams
were scared off by his small frame (5′8 or so).

While we're here, other notables available in the 2003 draft included SoftBank closer Takahiro Mahara, former-almost Red Sox farmhand Hayato Doue, Yomiuri starter Tetsuya Utsumi, Dodgers farmhand Robert Boothe, and Lotte ace Yoshihisa Naruse. Aoki's "comparable" Ozeki is currently out of NPB work and looking to catch on with a US minor league team.

HittingThe lefty-hitting, center-fielding Aoki is the closest thing Japan has to another Ichiro, and WBC viewers will probably get to hear the compared quite a bit. The
comparisons aren't really off-base, as the two have pretty similar
games. Comparing Aoki to a Japan-era Ichiro, both players have a long
stride in their swings, but Aoki gets into more of a crouch and appears
to have a more stable lower body. But judge for yourself with some
obligatory YouTube footage: here's a clip chronicling the evolution of Aoki's swing from 2005-2007, and a homerun Ichiro hit off of a rookie Daisuke Matsuzaka in 1999. Both clips are in Japanese, but the video should speak for itself.

Aoki is a bit of a free-swinger, but he's reduced his strikeouts and
increased his slugging percentage in each year of his career. He's also
improved on his batting eye, walking about as much as he strikes out
(his walk total actually surpassed his strikeouts in 2007). Another
telling stat is that in 2008, 31.2% of his hits went for extra bases,
up from 16.4% in his historic rookie year. Note also this improvement
came while Yakult moved the fences back in their home, Jingu Stadium.

Let's take a look at how he got his job done in 2008, courtesy of some analysis borrowed from the outstanding Data League site:

PA

GB / FB Ratio

GB Rate

FB Rate

Line Drive Rate

GB BA

FB BA

Line Drive BA

Hits to Left

Hits to Center

Hits to Right

Hits on GB %

500

1.4

52.40%

37.50%

10.10%

0.288

0.423

0.775

28.50%

35.40%

36.10%

13.60%

So it's pretty clear that Aoki uses the whole field, and does well
when he gets the ball into the air. I'd suggest that he can improve
further as his batting eye continues to develop and he can get pitches
to drive.

And More...Aoki was a bright spot for Japan's
disappointing 2008 Olympic team, and will take to the international
stage again in this year's WBC, where he'll start in center alongside
Ichiro. Along with Yu Darvish, he'll probably attract the most attention of any non-MLB player on Japan's team.

Aoki just signed for 2009 with Yakult for 260m yen ($2.86m) after four rounds of negotiations. There had been some rumblings of Yakult wanting to sign him to a 10-year deal,
but so far nothing's come of it. I wish they'd make more than a nominal
attempt to do it. Aoki asked to be posted a couple years ago, and
Yakult of course said "no way", so it would be nice to see them back
that up with a little commitment. Yakult basically knows they have a
guy that they'll eventually lose to MLB, but they have a nine-year
headstart on his services. Let's see how creative they can be in
retaining him and building a competitive team around him.